August has come and gone in what seems like the blink of an eye! This summer has been busier than I had imagined (especially considering I am still not working [for money, that is]). In addition to all the bands and volunteering, I have tried to enjoy the warm weather by reading outside in the mornings, instead of sitting here at the computer (I know, excuses, excuses!)! But I do not want to neglect this year of delight project, and I am still constantly thinking about delightful moments in my days, so here are 31 things I delighted in this month (mostly in chronological-ish particular order). I plan to get back to posting daily starting in this new month of September, and hope to blog regularly until the end of the year. Let's see if I can do it!
1. Camping! My husband and I went on our yearly camping trip August 1-8, and the whole week was absolutely delightful. Every year, his (my/our!) whole family books sites on Horse Island at Pawtuckaway State Park in New Hampshire and this year did not disappoint.
2. Lego practical joke. During camp, we went to Walmart and bought a Lego set to make a camper. After building it, we went around to every family camp site to share the "big news" that we "bought a camper". Everyone fell for it, and everyone was shocked when we revealed a Lego camper. It was THE best! hahahaha.
3. Tripod the Three Legged Squirrel. Last year at camp, we befriended a three legged squirrel whom we affectionately named Tripod. This year, we could NOT believe it when we spotted her! She seems to be doing very well, and looks way better and healthier than last year!
4. Helena, the Three Amigos, and Broken. We were visited by a bunch of ducks during our week at camp. "The Three Amigos" may have been the same reluctant mom and babies we saw last year. Broken was a male duck who did not appear to be very healthy, and Helena was a loner who hung out with us a lot. They were super cute and delightful.
5. Dutch Blitz. During camp, one of my nieces introduced me to a new card game called "Dutch Blitz", which was super fun, and goes super fast, and she won every game we played!
6. SushiGo! I brought SushiGo and learned it/taught it to one of my younger nieces, and we had a delightful time together. It was lovely to spend some quality time alone with her, and I was impressed by how quickly she picked up the game!
7. Fire Tower. We hiked to the Fire Tower at Pawtuckaway, which gave us some amazing views of the area. This year, we discovered a great shortcut to get to the trail, by driving all the way around the mountain and parking at a totally new area, which made the trail SO much easier to hike!
8. Kayaking. We took a long water craft adventure, me on my kayak, my husband with his SUP, and it was super fun. I even spotted a Kingfisher dive into the water and catch a fish!
9. P-TUCK BINGO. To sum up the rest of my camping experience without taking up all 31 spots here, I will mention my P-TUCK (Pawtuckaway) BINGO that I play every year. I create a board with a list of wildlife I hope to see and then check them off throughout the week. The best is shouting BINGO! randomly while out and about when I spot something new. I saw tons of wildlife this year including a: bat, hawk, woodpecker, heron (who also caught a fish right in front of me), chipmunk, turkey (with babies!), toad, frog, oriole, chicadee, nuthatch, loon, and so much more, all of which were amazingly delightful.
10. Maria's Pizza. Our regular Magic Pizza Tuesday Pizza place was closed for their yearly week-long vacation, so we had to go to a different pizza place on Tuesday this month. We chose Maria's, which even *I* love, even though I'm totally not supposed to eat pizza. For future reference, 5 pizzas would work perfectly for ~10 pizza eaters, but buying 6 gave my husband lunch for several days.
11. Cape Ann Pizza. I should mention our regular Magic Pizza Tuesday pizza place. I delight in being a regular there, and I especially love the "Christos Bowl" that they make me each week, a delicious keto meal in a bowl with spinach, chicken, bacon, and feta.
12. Ocean Rocks. I went on a Monday walk with my walking buddy to Stage Fort Park/Boulevard specifically to collect ocean rocks; I loved being able to look at the rocky beach in a speculative light, searching for the perfect rocks.
13. Reset Button at Cape Ann Lanes. We had a lovely first gig of 2021, with some diehard video game fans in the audience who recognized and appreciated our geeky video game music. It was also super cool to play music with the sounds of a bowling alley in the background!
14. The Runaround at Cape Ann Lanes. The following week, I got to be in the audience of a gig at the bowling alley. It was fun to be able to play arcade games while listening to great ska music.
15. Impromptu Walk & Klezmer Band. On a random Friday this month, my husband and I took a delightful walk down the Boulevard, got frozen yogurt from Cafe Bischo, and walked in the direction of the UU church, where we could hear live music; we just happened upon an amazing little Klezmer group called "Ezekiel's Wheels" (with a female bassist!) playing during the "Music on Meetinghouse Green" outdoor concert series, and stayed awhile to listen and to eat our dessert.
16. Hop Tea. I have become obsessed with Hop Tea made by HopLark in Colorado. My favorite is a white tea with tropical fruit flavors from the hops. It is lightly carbonated, lightly caffeinated, and allows me to drink a fun treat instead of alcohol!
17. Over the Rainbow. I played a solo with the Rockport Legion Band for "Over the Rainbow". I was very happy with my performance, and I was told the sky behind the gazebo where we were performing showed an absolutely delightful sunset on the ocean during it!
18. Invitation to Preach. During that concert, I was introduced to the audience with a short bio, including the fact that I am ordained minister and went to Harvard Divinity School. After the concert, I was approached by one of the French Horn players who didn't know I was a minister until that moment, and invited me to preach at her church in September, which I excitedly accepted. Come hear me at St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Lanesville on both Sept. 19 and 26!
19. The Little Mermaid. I started listening to a new podcast called "Revisionist History" with Malcolm Gladwell, and one of my favorite episodes so far is actually a three part series about the Little Mermaid. It focused on "fixing" the problematic plot (if you don't already know, most of Disney's films are highly problematic) and I LOVED the new ending they gave it, so much so that I plan to use bits of it for one of my sermons next month!
20. Getting paid to play video games?! I started planning one of my sermons for September by reading the scriptures assigned for that week and reading/listening to other people's sermons on them. I was inspired by a Brian McLaren sermon on Mark 9:30-37 where he uses an escalator analogy.... explaining that humanity is often riding the escalator "up" while Jesus is riding it "down". The disciples (and us for the most part) were intent on climbing the ladder of success while Jesus was more determined to descend the ladder of service. Jesus was constantly turning people's expectations upside down. ("The least will be greatest."). One of the things Jesus turned upside down was the traditional view of the hero-- who "fights" violently, "wins" the battle, and never dies; Jesus instead picked the way of peace, not war, and he died in the end... a shocking turn of events for a "hero". This reminded me of the shocking death of one of the main characters in the video game "Final Fantasy VII", so that's how I'm going to start my sermon. I started to replay FFVII in order to remind myself of this tragic death, and I commented to my husband that it was the first time I've ever played a video game in order to prepare for a sermon. My husband commented that it was the closest I'd get to being paid for playing a video game! haha!
21. Jonathan Van Ness. My husband downloaded a podcast episode for me to listen to that was absolutely delightful. It was an interview with Jonathan Van Ness (of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy") on "It's Been a Minute with Sam Sanders". I learned so much about JVN and his life and struggles as a gay man living with HIV and I thought Sam did a superb job with the interview.
22. Concert at Stage Fort Park. The Cape Ann Community Band had a delightful concert at Stage Fort Park in Gloucester. I was very happy with my/our performance, and excited that our family was so well represented! (My husband, niece, and I all played, and two of my other nieces marched around during the kids' march!)
23. Mii Theme. I hung out with the 2nd Alto Sax player from the Rockport band to give her some pointers on playing sax (she used to be a trumpet player and taught herself to play sax last year!) One of the things I brought with me was the Nintendo Mii Theme as a duet for alto sax. We worked on it a bit, and it sounded AMAZING! It was also just super fun to hang out with her; she and I are kindred spirits, in love with board games, video games, and music!
24. Wait Wait Don't Tell Me at Tanglewood. Every year for several years (except last year because of the pandemic), we travel to Tanglewood in Western Mass to see a concert or radio show taping, or sometimes both. This year, we saw "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" the NPR news quiz, and it was absolutely delightful. The BEST part of the show will probably never be aired. At the end of the show, the three comedian panelists (Maz, Paula, and Josh) go through a lightning round of questions about the week's news. Paula made some funny claims about the contest being rigged, and argued that Josh was getting special treatment from the host Peter Segal, especially after Josh did amazingly well on his questions, and Paula did not. But after the scores were announced, with Josh being declared the winner, Paula made a little speech, saying something like "I want to set an example. I admit that the contest was not rigged, and I accept defeat." (basically pointing fun at Trump and his ridiculous claims that he won the 2020 election because it was rigged). The crowd erupted in cheers; it was absolutely amazing.
25. Wandering Star Brewery. Every year we go to Tanglewood, we try to stop at Wandering Star Brewery in Pittsfield. They weren't going to be open during the time we would be there, but I sent them a facebook message to see if they would be able to open just for us to visit, do a tasting, and buy some beer, and they said yes! We had a delightful time there, as always, especially with Fuggle the brewery cat.
26. Pleasant Valley Wildlife Sanctuary. We took a hike during our visit to Tanglewood and it was delightful. We followed a bunch of trails along beaver dams, and accidentally took a wrong turn onto a closed trail (closed because of the hurricane henri damage, which thankfully wasn't actually that bad).
27. Pumpkins?!? My husband used a bunch of our compost in the greenhouse for our plants, and apparently some pumpkin seeds from the compost took root and developed into amazing plants. For the longest time, he thought they were spaghetti squash plants, but once the fruit started to develop, he figured out they were pumpkins! We will get a least a few from this accidental planting!
28. "Café Nerd". Every time I go to Whole Foods in Beverly, I stop at the next door Café Nero to get coffee. My husband once accidentally called it "Café Nerd" , because he read the name wrong on the cup, and now that's what I always call it. Their espresso is delicious, AND they have sugar free caramel syrup!
29. Blues Brothers. I played Bari Sax during the Aug. 29 Rockport Legion Band concert, and had an AMAZING part in the Blues Brothers medley we played, and I NAILED it. It sounded super awesome, and I was excited to play bari sax finally in this band!
30. Pink Panther. Another awesome bari part I had in the concert was the Pink Panther/Baby Elephant Walk/Moon River medley. I nailed it too! ♪♫♪
31. Mosquito Net Hat. After my frustration with the bugs on our recent hikes, I bought a mosquito net hat from Amazon and immediately wore it during a little evening hike in our Mt. Ann neighborhood. Seems to work! I had NO bugs flying in my face, up my nose, in my mouth, or around my ears! SUCH a drastic improvement!!
With a month's worth of delight,
♥Jamie
